It’s been a long-time coming – although it’s still too soon for many potential house buyers – but Rishi Sunak’s bumper stamp duty holiday extension is to end on Wednesday, June 30.

The tax-free threshold will then halve from £500,000 to £250,000 for three months, before returning to its normal £125,000 at the start of October. 

The forthcoming deadline has rocketed the property market, and which itself has been flourishing since the Chancellor first made his tax-free incentive announcement in the summer of 2020. At the time the UK was in the grip of the pandemic.

Average house increased £22,000 in a year

The latest report from the government’s Office of National Statistics, the average house price had increased by 8.9% from April 2020 to 2021. According to the Halifax figures, that’s worth around £22,000.

Some property analysts are predicting a crash when the Stamp Duty holiday finally peters out; others say the market is resilient enough and that there will be a slowdown in sales but no ‘big bang.’ That’s because demand is high and the UK is still in a housing crisis where there just isn’t enough homes to go round. This means supply is hardly likely to increase.

At the same time the hunt for ‘greener pastures’ is still a priority for many second-stepping city dwellers. First-time buyers have had the chance to save for a deposit during lockdown, increasing demand in that sector too.

Calls to abolish Stamp Duty completely

Despite this, many government economic advisors, as well as those within the property industry, are calling for the Stamp Duty to be scrapped completely.

 Julian Jessop, of the Institute of Economic Affairs said: “The constant tinkering with stamp duty is distorting the property market, leading to big swings both in house prices and in the number of transactions.

“Most economists agree stamp duty is a particularly damaging tax and it would be better to scrap it completely.”

His call was echoed by John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance who said: “Stamp duty is a terrible tax and the temporary cut has been a boon to many Britons.”

Sunak, meanwhile, has remained quiet on the matter. 

Stamp Duty: from late 1950s to today

The Stamp Duty Land Tax was introduced in the late 1950s at 1% over house prices of £30,000. Considering the average house at that time cost only £20,000, Stamp Duty wasn’t much of an issue for many home buyers.

In the mid-1990s the threshold doubled to £60,000 but calculating the tax became far more complicated, as new sub-thresholds were introduced. By 2000 there were four thresholds, with the highest paying 4%.

Today, it’s not unusual to pay £150,000 Stamp Duty on a home valued at more than £1m, thanks to the fact London homes over £937,000 come with a hefty 10% price tag.

As a result, the tax is viewed as a revenue winner by government. Were it to be abolished, they may be hard-pressed to find a similarly lucrative income stream.

House prices have fallen by 1.9% since March this year.

But official figures from the UK House Price Index for April also show an annual increase of 8.9%. That brings the cost of the average property in the UK to £250,772.

The government property figures – which are compiled by the Office of National Statistics – are calculated on the basis of actual house sale transactions which have gone through. Other Indices measure asking prices or valuations based on mortgage offers so are not quite the same realistic gauge of the property market at the time.

“The slight loss of momentum in the housing market in April reflects the fact that house prices had been inflated in March as buyers rushed to purchase a property before the original end date of the temporary increase in stamp duty to £500K,” said Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics.

The fact that in Scotland the Stamp Duty threshold reverted to its normal rates in March and house prices fell 4.1%, makes analysts believe a similar scenario will occur in England and Wales in the autumn.

North East sees highest growth

In England the North East pays witness to the biggest annual rise in property values with growth of 16.9%. The average house or apartment there is now valued at £144,032. Property in London has seen the lowest increase, at just 3.3%. It means the average property in the capital is now valued at £491,687.

Wales too has experienced large house price growth, with an annual rise of 15.6%. That brings the cost of the average property there to £185,041.

Semi-detached homes grow most in value

The cost of semi-detached properties increased most in England, with a 10.3% rise. That brought the cost of the typical semi-detached house to £255,589. Terraced houses rose by 9.7% to £219,577. Detached homes were up 9.4% in value to £412,888, while the increase for flats was less than half of semi-detached homes, at 4.7%. The average flat in England, now costing around £230,172.

The average cost of a first-time buyer property is £224,786 – an increase of 9% over the past 12 months. New Build properties have gone up by 10.8% to £333,823.

London sees almost non-existent growth in flats

In London semi-detached homes were also the biggest riser, with an increase of 7% to £626,412. The value of flats rose least, with just a 0.6% increase, making the cost of the average flat in the capital £415,006.

A similar pattern developed in Wales, with semi-detached homes experiencing the biggest price growth (16.8% to £181,164). Flats saw the lowest rise here too, with 12.3% to £124,317.

Repossessions start post-lockdown

There were 138 house repossessions in England in February this year. The highest number – 30 was in the North West. Next highest was the North East with 23 and third was the South East with 20. There were 18 house repossessions in London. Wales had nine.

Data for the UK House Price Index comes from HM Land Registry, Registers of Scotland, Land & Property Services/Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency and the Valuation Office Agency.

It is not just sellers, canny savers and surveyors who are benefitting from today’s fast-paced property market, it seems.

Property selling website On The Market this week announced its first profit in six years. Started by a group of estate agents, the portal made a pre-tax profit of £1.1m in the year to January 2021. That compares to a loss of £11.7m for the previous 12 months.

The profit was despite the company offering customer discounts totalling £2.6m during lockdown. 

The hunt for more rural locations together with a desire for larger properties is also driving traffic to the site. In fact, visits to the website increased by 13% to 267m during 2020. 

Increase in New Builds helping boost web traffic

Financial assistance from the stamp duty holiday and new government discounts for first time buyers is also boosting profits. So too is additional New Build listings from developers such as Barratt and Crest Nicholson. At the end of January this year the website had 12,687 property advertisers.

Estate agents behind the website – formed as a challenge to the monopoly of Rightmove and Zoopla – include Savills, Strutt & Parker, Chesterton’s, Knight Frank and two smaller London businesses.

Jason Tebb, chief executive of the company running On The Market said he was confident of ongoing success, particularly now that many homeowners were happy to allow physical visits to take place.

“The economic fundamentals still remain. There’s a low cost of borrowing and huge pent-up demand still, and very few properties on the market comparatively,” he said.

Housing inequality growing says BoE 

Meanwhile housing inequality – particularly between the young and older generations – is at risk of escalating even further, BoE figures show this week. Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane blames the stamp duty holiday for stoking the flames of the market to the extent house prices were up more than 10% in most UK regions compared to the same time last year.

Earlier this week mortgage lender Halifax recorded house prices as having increased by 1.3% in May, taking the average selling price per property to £261,743. And analysts at the Halifax don’t see any let up in the near future either.

Calling for more homes to be built to help with supply problems Haldane added: “For most people the global financial crisis came like an earthquake exposing those structural fault lines in our societies, of which inequality is among the largest.”

Housing supply and demand gap similar to 2013

Figures from the latest survey by Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) show the largest gap between house supply and demand since 2013.

As prices continued to increase, demand too went up last month. This is mostly due to buyers trying to beat the deadline for the phasing out of the Stamp Duty holiday. In fact, one analyst this week described the rush to buy as “the biggest conveyancing logjam we’ve ever recorded in a decade.”

But the number of properties available are becoming increasingly scarce, according to a spokesman for Rics. Despite this, he predicts more properties for sale will start appearing on listings in July and August.

As predicted the number of mortgages increased in April as would-be buyers rushed to take advantage of the Stamp Duty Extension. 

Figures from the Bank of England’s latest quarterly report show that mortgage approvals increased to 86,900 (from 83,400 in March). It’s the first monthly increase in five months. In November 2020 lenders approved a huge 103,000 mortgages as buyers rushed to beat the original March deadline for the stamp duty holiday. The current extension is due to end on June 30 when the tax-free sum will fall to £250,000.

The April mortgage figures are around 20,000 approvals higher than the pre-pandemic period in March and April 2020. Nothing is expected to change, until the end of the year at least, thanks to the better than expected economic recovery for the UK, together with continued low interest rates. 

Average mortgage 12.3% higher 

In terms of value, the average mortgage approval in April this year was for £232,400. That is a 12.3% increase on last April’s figure of £206,900.

The Bank of England also reported that households continued to pay off overdrafts and credit card debt – although to a lesser degree than before now that lockdown was easing and restaurants and shops reopening.

Home owners are propelling the market

Data also shows that for the first time it’s people with equity who are propelling the market. There were 82% more second and third time buyers this time round than in the previous quarter in 2020. The mortgage completion figure for first time buyers has risen by 31% over the same period.

Banking industry group UK Finance said this reversed the pattern of the past decade when there were more first-time buyers with mortgage approvals. 

The impetus has been the desire for property with more space and gardens – something that second and third time buyers could afford, thanks to the growth in value of their existing properties. 

“The ongoing health crisis has brought with it a need for space during lockdowns which existing homeowners, supported by over a decade now of uninterrupted price growth increasing their housing equity stakes, have been well placed to respond to,” explained a spokesman for UK Finance.

South of England owners have most equity

The south of England – where house values have risen most in the UK over the past decade – had the highest number of home movers. In the south east the number of home mover mortgages increased by 110% during the first quarter year-on-year. In East Anglia the figure had increased by 91% and in London by 85%.

Around 60% of borrowers own at least half of their home, with 50% home owners in the South east owning £250,000 of equity. In London around 20% of home owners have equity valued at in excess of £500,000.

Figures also show that homeowners have been intent on moving further afield too. This corresponds with the desire to move to bigger properties in greener areas. If the working from home trend continues, then property analysts believe there will be a ‘broadening out’ of property values across the whole of the UK.

“A real life Theatre of the Absurd” was how one mortgage broker described the current state of the property market this week. At the same time, a colleague in the house hunting sector described the pace of the market during Spring as “off the chart.”

Both property professionals were speaking after revelations from the government’s Office of National Statistics – which measures data on actual properties sold – that property in England has increased by 10.2% year-on-year. 

With the average property now £275,000, the market has seen the highest increase since August 2007. That was just before the start of the last recession. In terms of property prices, the other nations of the UK are following suit, with Wales looking at 11% increases, Scotland 10.6% and Northern Ireland 6%.

Detached properties the big winners in price rises

In keeping with the desire for more space and gardens following recent lockdowns, detached properties are faring best, having jumped by 11.7%. Flats, on the other hand, had a more modest rise of just 5%.

Last week Rightmove’s Housing Index (which measures property asking prices) showed the average London apartment or house had increased by just 0.2%. And yet buyers are still paying £20,000 more there per average property than last year.

Jonathan Hopper, CEO of Garrington Property Finders pointed out that the economy has shrunk by 6.1% year-on-year during the first quarter – in huge contrast to the 10.2% house price rise over the same period. He blamed Brexit, the pandemic and the stamp duty holiday for creating a perfect storm. 

“Spring is traditionally a busy time for the property industry,” he said. “But this year has been off the chart.”

Economy is red, yet property market is green 

Andrew Montlake, of independent mortgage broker, Coreco, agreed: “The economy is deeper in the red than ever before and yet house prices are rising at an astronomical rate. It’s a real-life Theatre of the Absurd.”

Despite their comments on the ridiculousness of the property market, neither see it settling down for some time. 

Sarah Coles, of Hargreaves Lansdown, agreed. But she did add a cautionary note of her own. The last recession was sparked by irresponsible mortgage lending, she said, whereas the 1990 crash was down to high interest rates and unemployment. 

Furlough extension and vaccinations prove property saviours

This time round it was unemployment and the possibility of the furlough scheme ending before the economy was back up and running. But the furlough extension, economy re-opening and a successful vaccination programme has significantly cut that risk.

“The jury is out over though as to whether we’re going to get a similar blow to buyer confidence in the near future,” she added “… much depends on whether the Indian variant sets the economy back again this summer.”

Perhaps the surprising news concerning the super-paced UK property market is that the UK is not alone. House prices across the 37 advanced economies in the OECD grew faster in the first quarter of 2021 since back in 1990. In Australia they were the highest since the turn of the Millennium and American property growth was in double digits.

And as for the future? 

Most economists point to incomes being pretty constant – stable enough for people to feel good about going out and buying property. There was a restriction on what we could spent money on too so people have built up savings. 

Interest rates have also remained low, causing many in the industry to speculate that the property market can look forward to healthy growth until at least the end of the summer.

Property in London has seen the lowest annual price rise since 2013, according to the latest Rightmove report.

The same data produced by the property portal shows an annual increase in house values of 13% in Wales and 11% across the north west of England. In Yorkshire and the Humber the increase is 10.5%. But the rest of England is also experiencing reasonably high increases. To the extent, prices are up £5,767 even within the past month from March to April.

London records lowest annual rise since 2013

In London the rise year-on-year is a mere 0.2%. For the rest of the country the price of the average property is up by 6.7% since the start of the pandemic back in March 2020. This brings the figure to £333,564.

Stamp Duty Holiday in full swing

Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s Stamp Duty Holiday continues to have an impact on the market in England but the extension is due to end next month. After June 30 the tax-free break will fall to the first £250,000 of a property (rather than £500,000 at present). On October 1, rates will revert to the usual £125,000. First-time buyers though will not have to pay any Stamp Duty on the first £300,000 of a property from July 1.

In all, the government earns around £12bn every year in Stamp Duty, the HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) figures show. It’s around 2% of the total tax collected by the Treasury. 

Hunt for green spaces goes on

Meanwhile, despite the smaller rise for London property, values there are still triple those of the standard home outside the capital.  The average property there is now priced at £640,373.

The poor rise in property values in London is believed to be spurred on by the pandemic with more people looking for greener spaces and larger properties from which to work from home.

Tim Bannister, Rightmove’s director of property data said many buyers were squeezing their way into higher price bands. This is in part due to the Stamp Duty Holiday but also the ability to save and not spend during the lengthy lockdown periods.

He added: “There appears to be more headroom in buyers’ budgets among those looking to upsize. Family homes with three bedrooms or more are like gold dust in many areas of the country, especially in parts of the north.”

No let-up in property prices this year

Interestingly, Bannister doesn’t see the end of the Stamp Duty Holiday having a huge effect on the property market and, as a consequence, property prices. Instead he sees the rush continuing to the end of the year and perhaps even beyond into 2022.

At the beginning of the pandemic it was southern and coastal areas that were benefitting from the desire to move from flats in the cities. Now, Bannister says, it’s the more rural areas of the north that are in favour. This is backed up by local estate agents, many of whom are noticing a high number of people from the south bidding for properties in regions such as Yorkshire and Lancashire. 

Property prices are continuing to soar, according to the latest Halifax House Price Index, released today.

Figures collected by the lender show the value of the average home in April is £20,000 more than the same period last year. It’s a rise of 1.4% – the fastest in five years – and takes the average selling price of a UK property to around £258,000.

The continuation of the Stamp Duty Holiday, buyers desperate for more space and the government’s new Mortgage Guarantee scheme are all contributing to the rocketing property market. So too is the fact many buyers have been able to save more during lockdown.

A spokesman at estate agent’s Fine & Country said: “The air is thin up here and, even though all buyers know in their hearts that things will calm down and growth will slow later this year, they are still frantically bidding up prices.”

Property selling within 24 hours

In fact, so competitive has the buying process become in Manchester that estate agents there say some properties are selling the same day they are listed. Other listings are receiving up to 20 offers within a few days. Some house sales are conducted via sealed bids. It’s not exceptional for properties in the suburbs to go £50,000 over the asking price either. 

Such is the desperation that some estate agents are reporting abuse from frantic buyers angry at missing out on viewings due to COVID-19 restrictions.

The North West as a whole is experiencing the fastest transaction rate in the UK, with seven from 10 of the biggest increases in house prices in areas of Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Cheshire, according to a recent survey by Rightmove. Houses in Salford have risen 44% in value within the past five years, from £129,563 to £188,600 in February.

Other evidence the property market in the UK is currently flourishing is HMRC figures for March which showed 191,000 properties selling – an increase of 32.2% from the previous month.

Then there is the Bank of England’s borrowing figures for March, which showed the biggest net increase in borrowing since records began back in 1993. The figure was a net £11.8 bn. A total of 82,735 mortgages were approved that month – a drop of 5,000 from February. The highest month for approvals was November, when 103,000 mortgages were given the green light.

Frantic pace to continue to autumn

The Chancellor’s Stamp Duty Holiday where buyers pay no tax on the first £500,000 of a property, will end in June. Then the tax-free amount will be cut to £250,000. In September the allowance reverts back to the usual £125,000.

That coincides with the end of the furlough scheme and what economists predict, will be many job losses. It’s only at this point that a slowdown in the property market is predicted. House prices though are expected to remain high, thanks to low interest rates and dwindling stock numbers (and which are already far lower than demand).

Despite this, a successful vaccination roll-out and loosening of lockdown restrictions much earlier than previously anticipated is also providing a boost to the economy.